vids, wednesday class, and holter

rah's wearing his holter monitor now and tried to go swimming!
last night -

started with agility - we did some skills - worked teeter and me fixing berlin flying off, then weaves and i worked berlins off side weaves (which i thought went well... until... ) and then we did sequences. since i have bronchitis and lydia will be running berlin in the USDAA trial coming up when i will be in NYC with ma mere, lydia ran berlin.

it went REALLY well except for the weaves - berlin had a lot of speed and confidence - but she entered on the wrong side of the poles both times. very odd, since it was ON SIDE weaves - and she's NEVER done that before. which leads me to wonder - in the off side weaves, when i clicked her for the entrance, did she start to think the goal was not necessarily "enter with pole on left" but instead, just nail the entrance opposite mom/handler? everything else looked really nice, including a nice serpentine INTO a threadle that she did jumping directly INTO me that she stayed WITH lydia and ignored me!!!!! so if she can handle like that at the trial (IGNORING THE STUPID WEAVE ISSUE) she hopefully will q :)

no other class until utility -

started with signals - mostly good. had some issue with people crossing in rah's path while i left him which makes him very uncomfortable with doing the signal - he freezes. but we worked through it. the funniest part was when i did the signals with my back to the door and the puppy that he really really hates outside the door and he really really really had a hard time doing them but he DID!! and then when he had ot do them with the piece of bread he really really really wanted to eat 10 feet to my left - he kept eye flicking over to it, but he did his job! (he did get the bread eventually at the end of the night!)

moving stand next, and he mostly did a nice job. earlier i was working on the finish from the stand - i had decided to try a left finish from the stand since all of a sudden rah has decided he can do one - but he was funny because he would act like he would go left and at the last minute tightly circle around to the right.

then we moved on to individual things. rah started with go outs, which really wowed me. there were toys scattered on the floor, and i just walked him in, set him up, and sent him to go out - he ignored all the toys. next go out, as he was going out, kathy threw a db right in his path - in fact she almost hit him with it !!! (we ALL know rah's deep love affair with the db!) - he didn't even flinch or look at it - stayed on his course and ran straight out to go out and turned when i told him, never looking at the db. sent him over a jump (i was also afraid he would get the db on the send to the jump) and he was great. on the next one, i sent him and she threw the db again, but then said " GET IT GET IT GET IT" telling him to go after it - still no movement from him towards the db! good boy!!! on the last one, as i sent him, kathy (who is the ONLY person on earth rah respects!!!) halfway started to tell him to sit - and told him repeatedly SITSIT SIT and he ignored her command, but turned and sat the minute i said "sit!" - GOOD BOY!!!! so i was VERY pleased with that performance from him - he ignored her and listened to me! (though to be honest, i wouldnt have been surprised if he HAD listened to her after all, she's done some of his training!)

moved to articles and he did a nice job there - his fronts could be closer and he was weird with the number 2 leather and wanted to carry that one even though it was DEFINITELY the wrong article - i did it over the weekend and he still insisted on indicating that one. must have really scented it, but he is taught on hot scent, so its wrong! but he did find the right ones. and he sat on all the pivots!!!!! but i can see where our pivot problems for gloves starts on the articles, because he sits so far back on the article pivots...

came to gloves. worked independent pivots first, and he did nicely. then got out gloves and worked those - im using mercury's smaller gloves and he did a nice job with them - if i use smaller stiffer gloves, rah can't shake them and they aren't fun and he doesn't seem to forget to come to front!! so that will be the plan for right now.

i was really happy with the utility run he had. it was solid and i couldnt have asked for more right now - there are definitely pieces that need work still though!